Easy porn access at cyber cafes

Itâ€™s a fact that adults and children watch sex sites in cyber cafes. Can this be banned and any action be taken against the cyber cafes? May I know the details of our pornography laws in this regard?DhaneshSection 292 of the Indian Penal Code govern the pornography laws. It deals primarily with obscenity in the real world. It is important to note that pornography per se has not been defined in the IPC. Even the Indian cyberlaw, the Information Technology Act, refers only to obscene electronic information and talks about punishment for publication and transmission of obscene information in the electronic form. The law finds it far more prudent to address obscenity rather than pornography, given the wide ambit of the term â€˜pornographyâ€™. Thus, one would attract criminal liability if he/she publishes, transmits or causes to be published anything obscene in the electronic form. The important test the law applies is the impact upon another personâ€™s mind. If the material is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest, itâ€™s definitely is a penal offence. The punishment for actual world pornography is less harsh, and thatâ€™s because electronic information is capable of replicating itself very fast. The law therefore places more emphasis upon controlling the same. And so publishing obscene or pornographic electronic information is liable to be punished on first conviction with imprisonment up to five years and fine of up to one lakh rupees. A point that may be noted is that the lawâ€™s focus is on publishing, transmitting or causing to be published obscene information â€” not on viewing pornography because while viewing a sex site, you are a passive recipient of information.The law seeks to penalise those who supply the pornography material. There is no law in India which actually bans viewing sex sites or pornography. The reality is that an overwhelming majority of users visit cyber cafes to access pornographic material. As of now, there is no specific law in the country which legally regulates the conduct of cyber cafes directly. However, under the Indian cyberlaw, cyber cafes have been straddled with liability for third party content and data made available by them. The Bombay High Court is looking into how access to pornographic websites can be restricted in cyber cafes following a public interest litigation which aims to protect minors from viewing pornography at cyber cafes. In this case, the Bombay high court treated a letter written by two law students to the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court on the problem of child pornography, as a petition and suo moto issued notice. An expert committee has come up with recommendations to regulate access to pornographic sites in cyber cafes and has stressed the need for asking every Internet Service Provider to provide the use of filter software to block access to pornography.It was recently reported that the court has also been stressing that the government needs to frame rules to restrict access to lewd sites in cyber cafes. The matter is still subjudice and the outcome of the present case will be interesting. However, it is imperative that this aspect of online pornography needs to be appropriately regulated and that the future generations of our country need to be protected from the hazards of online pornographic information.I have been told that digital signatures relate to security. Could you tell me how it can be used in government businesses?R.SinghDigital signatures is a means of authentication of electronic information. In the real world, normally, a person authenticates a paper by signing on it or by appending his thumb impression or mark. The signatures or thumb impression shows that the person had indeed executed the concerned document. In the electronic world, however, these advantages of the physical world are absent. You cannot, for example, put your signature on an electronic document. Some people were of the opinion that signatures could be scanned and appended to an electronic document to ensure its authenticity. However, that is not a foolproof method of authentication as signatures can be forged and their scan can be placed on e-documents. And so, technology and law have worked together to come up with more secure ways of authenticating electronic information. Digital signatures are used for authenticating electronic information by using the Asymmetric Crypto System and Hash Function or in short, the Public Key Infrastructure technology. Many countries, including India have made digital signatures legal. They stand guarantee to the authenticity and integrity of electronic documents and the fact that the documents have not been tampered with or manipulated with. They also establish non-repudiation of the electronic document concerned, so that once a person appends his digital signatures to it, he cannot resile from it by saying that he did not append his signature.Non-repudiation is of critical importance in e-commerce transactions and e-government initiatives. E-commerce, e-government and the internet would suffer a blow if people were able to repudiate their acts or contracts on the internet. And so digital signatures are of tremendous importance in making the internet safe and secure for e-commerce and e-governance. Since it varies from document to document, it ensures the authenticity of each word of that document. Digital Signatures in fact have a tremendous role to play in online government initiatives, including applications such as issuance of forms and licences, filing tax returns, government orders/purchases, registration and filing movement systems and public information records. Digital signature certificates would also have a place in applications like e-education, e-voting and money orders. Though digital signatures have been made legal in our country, they are not popular or prevalent as yet. This could be because people do not see the corresponding benefit of digital signatures compared to the cost of procuring it.A number of legislations had been passed in the US soon after the 9/11 attacks. How well are they working?Prashant KumarImmediately after the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, the government passed the Patriot Act to ensure expanded governmental powers, much needed to prevent further such attacks. The USA Patriot Act enables the federal government to secretly monitor political groups, seize library records and tap into internet and telephone connections. The practical working of this law has come across a number of hurdles. A number of municipalities across America have passed a resolution repudiating the USA Patriot Act to protect their residents from a perceived abuse of authority by the federal government. In end December 2002, Oakland became the 20th municipality in the US to pass a resolution barring its employee from collaborating with federal officials who might try to use their powers to investigate city residents. The municipalities contend that the USA Patriot Act fundamentally changes the legal rights of Americans and their freedom that the Constitution seeks to protect. While the legislation has been appropriately defended by the government on the ground that such powers are needed to fight terrorism, it is clear that people donâ€™t agree and feel it impinges on their freedom. It would be interesting to watch how the law works over a period of time.